How do political cultures take shape, and why do they fissure? Do border closures make minority identities stronger or weaker in the long run? How are gender dynamics in families transformed by state repression - and when can family decisions about identity, in turn, shape national or even international politics? How can answering questions about identity politics inform policies designed to integrate people with politicized ethnic backgrounds? These questions motivate my research agenda on authoritarianism, immigration, and identity transmission decisions among Balkan-originating populations and beyond. 

I am a social scientist currently based at the University of Mannheim. I received my PhD in political science from the University of Notre Dame, USA, in 2024 with a dissertation on authoritarian states' dual use of recognition and repression of minorities -- which I term "multiethnic identity engineering." I use communist Albania as a key exemplary case. When teaching, I emphasize empirical work, comparative methods, and theory. In addition to academic work, I also consult for projects related to migration, education of students with diverse backgrounds, identity, historical archives-to-data transformations, field research methods, and project management. (More about me here).